A few hours on the Toccoa

What’s that old saying? “Silence makes the heart grow fonder.” Wait...or is it “distance?” Either way, it’s been a long while since I’ve posted here. I have good excuses: marriage, child, laziness. Take your pick.

And so, my fishing life has begun to atrophy and my waders crack and age due to a lack of use. 

When it comes to posting here, there is also no shortage of complacency. I have fished. Not a lot, but some. I’ve just got more "important: things to concern myself with on the weekends. Did I already mention marriage, child, (oh) and German soccer.

But I’ve decided to break the silence. The cause? A few hours on the Toccoa River, a tailwater that runs through Blueridge, Georgia. I stopped by Blue Ridge Fly Fishing located downtown and they handed me this nice map.

I ended up wading into the river around the TVA Park at Curtis Switch. 

Nice, clear river. Lots of husky 10 inch browns, but one problem: The river is inaccessible. There’s a lot of private land along the banks, which makes fishing the water difficult. I asked around, and nobody has been able to point to a spot where there is a considerable amount of bank to wade up and down.

My few glorious moments on the Toccoa produced several fish, the above picture a great example of these beauties.

Who knows, maybe I'll jump off the highway in the near future and jump into the Toccoa (just making sure the flow out of the dam isn't crazy or I'll be doing more swimming than wading).

Fishing the Bode River (Fluss) in Treseburg

The German fly fishing chat forums are right. The Bode River north of Thale, especially in the Treseburg region is just plain gorgeous.

The underwater vegetation reminded me of the upper stretch of the Saale, and the scenery took me back to my time walking the banks of the Gunpowder. It had the feel of a Pennsylvania trout river, set between rolling hills and a lush surrounding forest.

The fish population is high. The Bode is filled with browns in the 10-inch range. I caught a few in the 11-12 inch-range, but they were the exception. I imagine that there are larger fish in the river, but the locals quickly fish them out. [Rumor has it that the fishing club (Verein) is considering making the river “members only” to protect it from being overfished… I hope they find a better solution that allows visitors to continue to enjoy the fishery and help the local economy.]

 

I opted again to stick with an Adams and had great results. I gifted a few flies to the overhanging trees, but that’s a sacrifice to which I’ve become accustomed.

Treseburg is full of local pensions for those interested in hiking, fishing, or just relaxing. I stayed at Pension Haus Alice Bodenstedt, and the couple running the place did all they could to make us feel at home. The owner called his pension a “work in progress,” and he made us forget any lackings in our rooms with a wonderful breakfast. [Treseburg sits in an area of Germany that formerly belonged to the DDR, so the development and recovery from their earlier economy is slowly progressing for the better.]

The night before my day of fishing I and a friend ate at Hotel Forrelle – the Schnitzel and Rostbrätel were delicious.

Petri Heil, Petri Dank hangs in Hotel Forelle

I bought my fishing permission form from Hotel Bodeblick near the Wildstein/Treseburg bus stop. The price was pretty steep for one day (20 Euros but 40 for 3 days), but the view and peacefulness of being on the river was worth it.

Fishing Tag

Oh, and this was the first time in my German fly-fishing experience that I had to wear a visible tag, identifying me as a “legal fisher.” The river has hiking trails nearby, which makes the Bode reasonably accessible.

Of the fisheries I’ve encountered in Germany, this has been one of my favorites. Were the Bode to
become a catch-and-release river, I can imagine it producing impressive browns.

Bad Lauterberg im Harz and the Oder River

Upper section of the Oder

Lesson #1 when you’re traveling by train to a fishing destination: make sure the train stop is relatively near where you actually intended to fish.

5+ kilometers. I didn’t account for 5+ km. I’d have to trek to get from the “Bad Lauterberg im Harz Barbis” train station to, well, Bad Lauterberg. Now, I can hear some of you saying, “5 km? That’s not much. I walked twice that much every day to school and back.” Well, kudos to you. I just wanted to hop of a train and fish.

So, I hopped off a train, walked a few miles and began to fish. My destination river was the Oder. It flows at a frigid temperature out of a dam below the Oderstausee. Before I could do so, though, I went and bought my permission form for the river at Freie Tankstelle R. Mävers…I also bought a pack of Schlümpfe. Who could resist? From there I dropped off my pack at the nearby Pension. [I stayed at Pension Haus Kempe, but there are places to stay littered throughout the area.] I only had a few hours of fishing on the river, so I jumped into the river just below the foot bridge at Hotel Revita (I hiked across the Kurpark to get there) and fished up to the upper boundary of the river near Hotel Panoramic.

First thing to know about the Oder: It’s cold. No, it’s freezing cold. I’ve been doing all my fishing in Germany with sandals/shorts/pants, and this water tested every ounce of fortitude I had. Cold, freezing cold. And apparently this is the feature of the river that makes Bad Lauterberg’s park not just a park, but a “Kurpark.”

Wading Pool at the upper boundary of the fishing section

Through the years, people have come to wade in the freezing cold water, which is somehow healing? (Yes, I plan to use freezing cold every time I write about the water temp. It was freezing cold.) The signs for the various wading apparatuses warned people to only spend 30 seconds in the water. 30 seconds. I spent a few hours, and I’m expecting that every second over 30 was to my benefit. Every. Second.

The fishing was good. I tied on an Adams dry and used it all day. The river is too small to naturally produce large fish (although I could be wrong), but there’s a healthy number of browns and brooks that call it home. Add to this the fact that the upper section offers about 300 meters of scenic wooded fishing, and it was well worth the trip.

I caught a good number of 10 inchers. Walking the river down through the town, there is a spill-dam, which collects a few trout. They were the largest trout I saw in the river. Nothing over 12 inches. And at this particular dam it appears water gets diverted from the river. The flow thereafter dramatically drops, and walking it a bit convinced me the lower portion wasn’t worth my time.

All in all, it was a great, relaxing afternoon.

A forgotten weekend on the Gulf

Only recently I went back and looked at this blog. It has been neglected, so to speak, and so has my life as a fly fisher. Needless to say, that should change. [In fact, part of my reason for checking up on the blog was the fact that I am currently making plans for fishing trips to the Harz region of Germany!]

Anyways, what was noticeably missing from this blog was a report on my recent trip to the Louisiana Gulf. My fearless brother and captain had me down for a weekend in December, just as my semester had let out and as he prepared to head to the Fl. Keys.

The weekend was a reminder of two things: 1) I have a great brother and 2) I am a terrible caster, especially with larger-weight rods. The amount of redfish to which I failed properly to cast during a three-day period was overwhelming. I should practice. I should.

I did make a few decent casts. And one resulted in this guy, who I believed weighed in around 20lbs.

The Nahe River near Fischbach-Weierbach... one last 2013 German adventure

Excuses, excuses, excuses. I have none for taking so long reporting on my trip to the Nahe River near Idar-Oberstein. I’ll make this brief, both for the sake of my ever-failing memory and my laziness.

Just before my return to the States, I decided to get one more fishing trip in; somewhere close by. That led me to the Nahe River near Idar-Oberstein. From Mainz it wasn't that far, so the train ticket was relatively cheap. It also didn’t hurt that I had saved up enough bonus points from my Bahn Card to earn a free all-day train pass. So, it was off to Idar Oberstein….the city with a church built into the side of a cliff. Cool.

Only problem: Apparently they decided to shut down the section of the Nahe near the city for some sort of fishing contest. At least that was what I was told by the kind-but-hard-to-understand-because-of-their-dialect people who helped me at the local fishing store, Heckmann Angeln [I am not putting the link to their store because it appears there is something virus-oriented attached to it], that I was only allowed to fish a stretch of the river in the Fischbach area, extending about a mile.

Let me take one step back and let you know that I attempted to secure my fishing permission form the Idar Oberstein fishing club online, only to be forced to travel to the store and buy the form. It was expensive, but haven’t we already learned that the German way of tempering the lust for fishing is to price-out the purchaser? To get to the store, I jumped off the train at the Fischbach-Weierbach stop and headed in a southwesterly direction, upriver.

To get to the allotted stretch of water in Fischbach, I actually had to head back to the train station, cross over the tracks, and head down stream along a road next to the tracks named “Im Nachen.” As you walk along the road, which will quickly become a narrow gravel passageway, you’ll pass a football park on the left (sitting between the road and the river). The road will eventually dead-end at the train tracks, but the permission form allows for fishing beginning at the train bridge and ending where the Nahe meets the football (soccer) fields.

It was there at the bridge that I had a massive strike from the largest trout I had seen go after my fly in Germany. It took a black wooly bugger, but after a brief tussle, rolled free of the fly. As I walked up the river I came across a younger guy who had landed a decent-sized pike. By days end, I was able to land a brown. All-in-all it was pretty uneventful.

Though the section had its moments, for the price and the pressure, I wouldn’t recommend it over what might be encountered in Idar Oberstein. Maybe my next visit this coming summer will offer the opportunity to fish that section.

A Little Fun with Sherman's Lagoon

I hope Jim Toomey won't be offended by my small change to his comic.

Vodoo Casting Child

I needed a little distraction from the wintery weather here in Mainz.  This did the trick:



which leads me to Stevie:

Saalfeld, Hohenwarte, and the Saale

Simply put, I was itching to get on the water.  I had put in some decent hours at my new job in Mainz, and, well, found myself surfing the web for a possible day trip.  I knew I had to travel over to Halle to pick up some documents, so I thought I would test a new water in Thüringen (Thuringia).  One of the first articles the wonder-working-google provided me was this.

Reminders of the trip

I can't remember how many times during my travels as a graduate student that I stood on the bridge in Saalfeld, buying time before my connecting train arrived at the nearby station, and thought: "There's gotta be some nice fish in there."  I wasn't certain, but I couldn't imagine the Saale being empty.  The article confirmed all my underlying hopes.  And it only took a few seconds before I was figuring out which friend would let me sleep one their couch, so I could get a full day in on the river.

The Australian came through.  Nothing like having a good Australian friend.  Great accents, great conversations.... and a free place to stay in Gotha.  From Gotha it was an hour-and-a-half to Saalfeld.  According to the (above-linked) article, I could have gone in two directions from the train station to fish: 1) South of the city (and then I would have had to buy my permission form from the Angel-Center Saalfeld-Rudolstadt) or 2) I could head up to the dam and work down from Hohenwarte.  The article praised the upper section, so I jumped on the bus (#46, if my memory serves me correct) and headed up the Saale, drooling at every glimpse I got of the river.  What I didn't know was that Hohenwarte stands a good two-to-three kilometers above the dam.  I didn't come prepared to walk back down....nor did I want to.  Yes, I'm lazy.  Deal with it.

Posselt's Angelhuette, Hohenwarte

I can't say enough for the people at Posselt's Angelhütte.  I jumped out of the bus, walked down the street, and found myself greeted by a friendly man behind the counter.  I asked him about the river, bought a permission form for the day, got a free orange drink (!!!), and....well...talked two older gentlemen into giving a lazy American down the river.  They were off to go pike fishing downstream, and they showed enough curiosity in the strange fly fisher with a terrible accent that I was pretty sure I could wrangle them into a car ride.  Knowing it will bring a smile to most of my readership, it's worth noting that their car was packed top-to-bottom with fishing gear; there was maybe enough room for a cooler of beers.  They had to clear a spot for me in the back seat by shoving rods and cases into an odd pile that resembled some sort of freakish backseat passenger made of hackle, hooks, and graphite.  It's my honest opinion that being a fly fishing bum is one of the few 'titles' one can hold and not be accountable for actually being an outright hippie.  Who else travels around with a car-load of gear, granola bars, and feathers?  Deadheads and....

As we drove down, they asked me where I wanted to be dropped off, and I kindly suggested they should toss me out of the car at the best spot they could image.  So, after winding through a few villages, they pulled off a little above Tauschwitz.  We exchanged information, handshakes, and a kind "Petri Heil" (the traditional greeting for fishermen in Germany) and I was off.

The river was a bit high, and both the guy at the shop and the two gentlemen suggested nymphing.  I hate nymphing.  You know what else I hate.  Wading in freezing-cold tailwaters with nothing on except sandals and thin polypro.  Yeah, the Saale is a tailwater...and it runs COLD.  And forget about the nymphing.  I'm not staring a floating indicator all day while my knee-caps freeze off.  

Answer to my dilemma?  Well, it was two-fold.  1) numbness and 2) the glorious black wooly bugger.  I was quite comfortable with both after about five minutes in the water, and both were productive.

There wasn't much feeding going on, but I was able to connect with a few browns holding along the edges and hiding in the underwater vegetation.  The fish weren't as hefty as I expected.  And considering I was seeing the same size over and over, the bigger fish were probably holding in the deeper pools down-river.  I also suppose (especially in the German context) that the bigger fish don't last through the season, but miraculously reappear after the river is restocked in the spring.  

I got out of the river and got some lunch (a tasty Döner), regained some feeling in my toes, and bought some snacks at a Penny Market for the rest of the day.  I crossed back over into the Saale and made my way down into the middle of Tauschwitz.  By that time the cold water had gotten to me, but to my delight some of the more courageous, younger trout were rising.  So, I switched to an emerging light bodied sulpher.  Had a little action on the top, and then called it a day.  I noticed towards the middle of the day, the Saale began to look more and more like an fly fishing emporium.  It was the first time I had seen a German river get so much pressure.  Keep this in mind as you're thinking about where to fish. If you hit up the Saale, you'll likely have some company.

 

As I sat there in the sun waiting for the bus to arrive, I watched an older gentleman wade up the main pool running through town and fish his homemade fly.  He proudly showed it off to me as we chatted on the shore.  The colors were wrong, and as he continued to work upstream, I don't remember seeing him net anything.  Then along came the young guy.  You know, all Orvis'd out.  Working the same pool, he pulled out two or three fish.  He looked around to make sure his victories were being noticed.  Blech.  I'd much rather fish with the homemade fly that had no chance than showboat with every bit of superficiality one can muster.  But truth be told, I am more-often-than-not the showboat, seeped in pride, always looking to be noticed.  It was a good reminder at the end of the day of the power of humility found in the Cross.

Oh!  I forgot to mention.  After jumping back into the river in the afternoon, I was mindlessly piddling away casting to the shore.  I made a shorter cast and let the fly sit for a moment, and what I thought was a large rock turned out to be a nice sized carp (I think) that slowly gulped the bugger.  It was a huge take, and with a hard turn by the fish, the fly got dislodged.  By the size and shape of the mouth, I am pretty convinced it was a 5+ pound river carp.  Man, that would have been a fun ride. 

[One last memory: I ended up waiting for the bus for quite a while.  Come to find out, the transit system doesn't even keep up with its own schedule.  Apparently, on the weekends the buses run less often (than even stated on the weekend schedule), and you might be require to call them up and let them know you're waiting.  A bus did come, but it left me with the task of figuring out a new train schedule to get back home.]